Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
St. Paul points out a certain paradox in Acts 17:27-28. The paradox is that we have to seek for the God who is already present to us. “In him we live and move and have our being,” and yet summons us to “grope for him and find him” with the help of creation and divine providence. Ignatian spirituality is but one method of groping for the God who is already present, more present, in fact, to us, than we are to ourselves. There are other methods, too, but one way or another, it remains incumbent on us to seek the face of God.
In the revelation of Jesus Christ, we have indeed truly found God, and yet, we must continue to search for him by praying, by going to church on Sundays and Holy Days of obligation, by confessing our sins, and so on. It’s like a good book that you have to read a couple of times before you really understand its greatness. We can’t rest on our laurels or presume that we already know it all. We have to avoid the situation, common in many households, where people live together but don’t really know each other. Or where office mates sit next to each other for 20 years, each doing their own thing, assuming the other guy is just fine, and never really bothering to find out. Likewise, those who have already found Jesus and his gospel must continue to look for him, going ever deeper into the mystery of God’s three-in-one and one-in-three.